Sibley The Shortest Day Celebrating the Winter Solstice by Wendy Pfeffer

     Winter begins on or about December 21.This book explains what the winter solstice is and how it has been celebrated by various cultures throughout history.  Some celebrate by exchanging gifts and decorating  their houses with evergreens. People believed  that the evergreens would bring strength to their families. Also, people have welcomed the winter solstice because it's a new beginning.~ Mary Jo Fox

SWCC is reading: The Polar Express

The Polar Express is always  a winner, as Christmas days get closer the students are always excited to read this book. 

This enchanting book tells the story of a little boy who believes in Santa Claus, although his friends say that he does not exist.Because of his faith, he is taken on a magical journey to the North Pole aboard the Polar Express, where he is given a very special gift: a beautiful bell that only rings for those who still believe.

 Father Fox's Christmas Rhymes by Clyde Watson is a marvelous collection of rhymes describing different events leading up to Christmas. From:
Here am I, old Father Fox
With sweets in my pocket & holes in my socks
Bringing a basket brimful of cheer
A toy for each day until Christmas is here
to:
Christmas is all but over now
There's nothing left under the tree
Except wait! Over here there's one more present,
& the tags says ...... it's for me!

Merry Christmas!!!!


~ Deb
Stocking School

Jack and the Baked Beanstalk by Colin Stimpson Sibley

 Jack and his mother run a little burger cafe; but business is slow and they are nearly broke.When Jack spends the last pennies on a can of baked beans, his mother is angry and throws them out the window. A gigantic beanstalk with cans of baked beans  dangling from the shoots, grows up to the sky. Jack and his dog Bella,climbs the stalk, which takes them to a castle of a giant; who spends  time counting his fortune. Jack helps the giant to find something more fun and saves the cafe in the process.  The giant becomes a very  famous cook!!~Mary Jo Fox

Burton Elementary: 50 Below Zero by Robert Munsch / 50 Grados Bajo Cero por Robert Munsch

This week in library at Burton Elementary, we were reading "50 Below Zero" by Robert Munsch. With the cold weather outside, I thought it would be a fun winter story to read. Like many of Robert Munsch's stories, it's got a pretty silly and humorous premise, and features a lot of repetition. Jason's father is a sleepwalker who keeps wandering the house at night in his sleep, and ends up wandering out into the woods and getting frozen like an ice cube, requiring Jason to save the day (or night, rather). You can find a recording of the author (Robert Munsch) reading the story out loud on YouTube, to hear how he inflects his voice & the frenetic energy he puts into the story. You don't have to read it exactly like he does, but it's neat to get a look inside the author's head to hear how they read & think about the story. You can ask students after the story if they've ever sleepwalked or know anyone who has sleepwalked, and you will probably end up hearing some pretty funny stories.

Esta semana en la biblioteca de Burton, leímos "50 Grados Bajo Cero" por Robert Munsch. No tenemos la edición en español, y entonces necesité traducirlo. Espero que hice un buen trabajo. En este cuento chistoso, el niño Jason se necesita rescatar su papá sonámbulo, que deambula fuera en la noche más frío del invierno. ¿Qué va a hacer Jason cuando su papi está congelado como un cubito de hielo? ¡Leamos hasta el fin para descubrir! Se puede preguntar a los estudiantes si conocen unos sonámbulos, y es probable que usted escuche algunos cuentos divertidos.

¡Feliz lectura! / Happy Reading!

- Dennis De Boer

The Christmas Blizzard by Helen Ketteman is a fun fictional story that finds little Sissy McNab getting a mini history lesson on her town from Maynard Jenkins. It focuses on the winter of '22, the ensuing blizzard and the effect it has on the small Indiana town.

~Deb
Stocking Elementary

From 1906 to 1975, this is the story of dancer Josephine Baker. The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker was written by Patricia Hruby Powell with illustrations by Christian Robinson.  

Josephine Baker was raised in the slums of St. Louis, Missouri who dreamed of dancing ragtime and honky-tonk music. Between discrimination and race riots, Josephine elevated her talents to perform in a small vaudeville troupe and then her world began to change. From New York City to Paris she started stepping into the global spotlight. 

This story found on GRPS Overdrive was read online on our library screen by our 1-6 grade students at GR Montessori. Students found the story intriguing and historically interesting. 

Paul Dear

The Michigan Reader for Boys and Girls by Kathy-jo Wargin has provided great reading enjoyment and sharing by the students at Stocking School. It is a fun book of riddles, poems, and stories about different facets of Michigan life.